Software Engineer, Governance

About Retool

Nearly every company in the world runs on custom software for critical operations such as tracking performance metrics, handling customer support workflows, building admin dashboards, and countless other processes you might not have even thought of. But most companies don’t have adequate resources to properly invest in these tools, leading to old and clunky internal software or users still stuck in manual and spreadsheet flows.

At Retool, we’re building the first enterprise App Gen platform: software that transforms natural language into production-ready code, integrates directly with business data, and meets the highest standards of security and governance. AI is redefining what it means to build software—and who gets to build it.

On the Governance team, we’re solving the problem of building fast and building safely. This team owns the policies, access controls, audit trails, and security infrastructure that make Retool the platform enterprises trust to scale across their entire organization.

• Data Access Control Layer:
  Design and build the system that enforces table-level, column-level, and row-level access controls across Retool’s database connectors, including policy modeling, query rewriting, and building an admin UX.
• Hub & Admin Setup:
  Redesign how administrators onboard and manage Retool. Build landing page experience, global search, guided setup flow, security insights, and an admin dashboard for platform health.
• Projects:
  Build the new organizational primitive for Retool, including data model, permission layer, and UI that gives teams a clear home base.
• Automated Security Center & Admin Control Panel:
  Build the intelligent layer that proactively keeps Retool secure—surfacing under-authenticated resources, monitoring analytics, and integrating with compliance and DLP tools.
• Spaces & Instance Management:
  Build controls that let enterprises govern multiple Retool Spaces and instances from a single pane of glass, enforcing organization-wide policies and identifying misconfigurations.

Work across the stack from full-stack web development to data pipelines and product infrastructure. Focus on problems that matter most to large customers—what slows them down, keeps security teams up at night, and how to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

• 2–8 years of professional software engineering experience, ideally at startups.
• Experience owning technically challenging, cross-functional projects from start to finish.
• Strong fundamentals across the entire stack—backend systems design, data modeling, and building reliable, scalable software.
• Clear communication in design docs, code reviews, and cross-functional discussions.
• Commitment to code quality, testing, and improving the codebase.
• Motivation to solve real customer problems, not just write clever code.

• Familiarity with Terraform or infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Exposure to dbt, Databricks, or data pipeline tooling.
• Experience building authorization, access control, or security systems.
• Experience with policy engines, query rewriting, or data governance platforms.
• Familiarity with RBAC, ABAC, or relationship-based access control models (Zanzibar, OPA, Cedar).
• Familiarity with authentication and authorization protocols (OAuth, SAML, SCIM).
• Experience designing complex admin-facing UIs or platform management tools.

You’ll join a team that sits at the intersection of security, platform infrastructure, and product experience, working alongside engineers, product managers, and designers who care deeply about making enterprise governance effortless.

For candidates based in the United States, the base pay range for this role is $163,800 – $306,000 per year. Retool offers a comprehensive benefits plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Additional compensation may include equity and/or commission. Work is hybrid with flexible location. See our careers page for more details.